


The Boy Who Fell From Space

by magisterpavus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Galra Keith (Voltron), Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) was Raised by the Blade of Marmora, M/M, Mutual Pining, Near Death Experiences, Pilot Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 02:50:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21154352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterpavus/pseuds/magisterpavus
Summary: The cockpit is filled with fire.This is what the littlest Blade of Marmora thinks as he falls, tumbling through layers of atmosphere, staring through hazy eyes at the cloak of incandescent plasma which surrounds his ship in an inescapable shroud.He will die alone, one hundred and seventeen light years from home, in the dark...or rather, hewouldhave, if not for Takashi Shirogane.





	The Boy Who Fell From Space

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last of my three lil Keith's birthday blitz fics and it's quite dear to me! It was a concept that was initially silly but when I wrote it down I was really endeared by it, so I hope that comes across. I am so weak for aliens/humans meeting each other and just being like "you're so strange but i'm.....into it." Also, pining and domesticity....I am soft.
> 
> follow me on twitter for more sheith and ramblings [@saltyshiro](https://twitter.com/saltyshiro)

The cockpit is filled with fire. 

This is what the littlest Blade of Marmora thinks as he falls, tumbling through layers of atmosphere, staring through hazy eyes at the cloak of incandescent plasma which surrounds his ship in an inescapable shroud. Like an atomic bomb, it is as beautiful as it is terrible, flickering orange and violet flames rippling ever outwards: brilliant, ethereal, and the last thing he will ever see. 

The black box crackles with static. Keith cannot understand it, but he doesn’t have to. He knows what’s happening. His controls stopped responding. His chutes aren’t opening. His nav system is offline and has been for too long to reboot. His communications are silent.  _ Critical mission failure.  _

Through the burning, imploding metal, he can make out the curvature of the planet he’s hurtling towards at speeds sure to tear his body limb from limb. 

It’s blue. Nothing like Daibazaal. Keith closes his eyes.  _ Knowledge or death,  _ he thinks, unable to say it aloud as the breath is ripped from his lungs and he falls, and falls, and falls.

The plasma flares to blinding levels; he can see it even through his eyelids, at least until the force slams his head against the back of the pilot seat, and the light is extinguished in black nothing.

He will die alone, one hundred and seventeen light years from home, in the dark. 

*

Takashi Shirogane squints upwards, slowing his bike to trace the trajectory of the violet smoke staining the blank blue sky. The long trail ends much closer than expected, and as he nears the rising plumes of darker, acrid smoke curling from the bottom of the box canyon, the back of his neck prickles. At first, he thought he would find little more than a wayward weather balloon, or maybe some high-tech drone that flew too close to the sun. But now, something drives him to cut his engines at the edge of the canyon instead of heading off the cliff as he usually would. 

He can’t see through the billowing smoke of the wreckage, not until he’s scramble-slipped his way down the sandstone boulders and loose earth and finds himself face to face with the charred husk of a...plane? Fighter jet? Shiro swallows, taking a hesitant step closer. The Air Force base isn’t far away; this must be one of theirs. It must be, except that after five years of flying them, Shiro likes to think he knows a thing or two about aircraft, and this doesn’t look like any – in action or as a prototype – that he’s ever seen before.

It’s made of sleek black metal which shines with violet iridescence where it isn’t blackened and burning. The wings are sharp and tapered to clean curved points like an F-4 Phantom, but it doesn’t appear to be equipped with any missiles. The engines, as well, must be internal, or otherwise burned up and exploded in the crash. Shiro makes a sympathetic sound. It’s a beautiful plane, but not one likely to ever fly again.

Through the smoke, a shadow moves.

Shiro leaps back with a bitten-off curse, then, as the smoke parts enough for him to see what lies within, his eyes widen in horror.  _ There’s someone in the plane.  _

Shiro’s running towards them before he can think better of it, because the shadow slumps to the side, and as he clambers up and over the broken wing, he can see through the noxious black fumes a hand, gloved in black and twitching, as if desperately trying and failing to lift a single finger. 

Without hesitation, Shiro grabs for the person’s hand, and finds it limp, but searing hot even through the cloth. He manages to get a foothold in the wreckage and leans over the cockpit, making out the remains of what must have been the pilot seat, the figure curled within it. Their flight suit is strange; tight black and violet much like the plane. It’s torn and singed badly in places, and the flesh underneath looks badly burnt...almost bruised in color.

This is what Shiro assumes, until he carefully tilts up the person’s head, which hangs bowed over their chest, and finds a splintered helmet revealing black hair tangled with blood, fine cheekbones cut in a dozen places, and  _ purple skin. _

Shiro freezes. For a long moment, he stands there in shocked bewilderment, crouched over the unmoving...not human. It isn’t human; that much is clear. Not only is its skin a vivid, unmistakable lavender, its ears are pointed sharply, the gloved hand he grasped at is tipped in claws, and drying blood runs down its chin not from external injury, but from the jagged fangs which have sliced at its own parted lips.

Shiro glances around, half-expecting a government drone to materialize and fire at him for even witnessing this, much less — touching it. He’s holding an alien’s hand. Oh, fuck. That’s what it is, isn’t it? An alien. This is some Area 51 shit. It can’t be, but it is, and the alien is...it’s dying. No. Not it. He. Shiro thinks, anyway. Doesn’t want to assume, but — he shakes himself. 

The way he sees it, he has two choices.

One: turn around and run away and hope that whoever finds the alien next won’t find a single trace of him here. 

Two: get the alien back home, try to fix him up, and hope that a) the alien doesn’t kill him and that b) somehow, nobody finds them.

It’s not much of a choice. Shiro draws in a deep, shuddering breath, and reaches for the alien.

*

After a nerve-wracking hoverbike ride back to the house, Shiro makes a futile effort to peel the remnants of the alien’s suit away from his battered body, but in the end he has to cut the already torn fabric apart with a pocket knife. The flight suit has two layers, and much as Shiro tries to preserve the alien’s decency, it quickly becomes clear that isn’t going to happen when he discovers the undersuit is absolutely soaked in blood. 

Once that’s cut off and away, Shiro carries the alien to the bathroom, laying him out carefully in the bathtub. The alien’s head lolls against the tiles, unresponsive, but the shallow rise and fall of his lean chest gives Shiro some hope. Still averting his gaze as best he can – despite an embarrassing amount of curiosity – Shiro turns on the spigot to a lukewarm temperature and watches grimly as the pooling water turns red. 

He didn’t expect the alien to bleed red – maybe blue, or green, or something – but he does, albeit a little darker than human blood, almost black where it’s dried and caked on his face and head. 

Shiro cleans him off with an old washcloth, picking out shrapnel and glass and suturing the biggest, bloodied wounds with military precision, while thanking the powers that be for forcing him to take so many medical courses in the Academy. Once all the wounds are cleaned of debris and sewn up, he fumbles with gauze and Neosporin, then thinks better of that when he considers the alien has never encountered Earth antibiotics before. 

He hopes nothing is infected, although he’s more worried about the mottled bruising over the alien’s ribs, and his labored wheezes of breath through sharp teeth. Shiro makes a note to fix the ice machine before – or rather, if – the alien wakes up. He’s going to need ice packs for weeks.

As Shiro wipes the alien’s face clean, he’s startled by how almost human it is. Again, even if his blood was red, Shiro expected more differences – more pairs of eyes, insectoid mouthparts, gills, horns, et cetera. But save for the purple skin, pointed ears and teeth, and the delicate darker violet stripes along the edges of the alien’s jaw and forehead, he looks...well, not  _ normal, _ because his features are extraordinarily fine. 

He’s pretty, okay. The alien is pretty. Even when Shiro lifts one of the alien’s closed eyelids and recoils at the blank gold beneath. So, he doesn’t have irises. Nobody’s perfect. 

Shiro has so many questions, and there’s no guarantee any of them will ever be answered. The alien is still in critical condition and unresponsive to any of Shiro’s half-hearted attempts to wake him. He doesn’t even know if the alien can speak, if he does come to. And even if he can speak, he might attack Shiro first. 

That isn’t a possibility Shiro likes, but his prosthesis does have combat capability. Even though Shiro begged for it not to, they told him it might come in handy someday. Shiro isn’t sure this is what they had in mind, and he  _ really _ doesn’t want to blast the alien to bits. With every passing minute spent hunched over his still, bloodied form, Shiro feels a little more responsible for him, a little more protective of the boy who fell from space. 

It’s the first time in a long time that he’s felt really and truly useful.

After an hour or two, though, Shiro is forced to admit he’s done all he can. Hell, he isn’t even sure if the alien can breathe in Earth’s atmosphere. Maybe that will kill him before his injuries do. 

But Shiro isn’t going to give up on him in the meantime. He drains the tub, bundles up the alien in a few towels, dresses him in his smallest pair of shorts and a T-shirt that hangs off his frame almost comically, and carries him to the futon in the living room, the one he used to sleep on as a kid, back when this house was his uncle’s and Shiro still had both arms. 

Once Shiro gets him tucked under the blankets and places his head on the fluffiest pillow he owns, he has to step back for a moment to marvel at how small and peaceful the alien looks. He may be comatose, but like this, Shiro can imagine he’s just sleeping. 

The alien’s upturned nose twitches a little, and Shiro can’t help but smile though his heart is pounding out of his chest. Maybe, impossibly, it will be okay. 

He makes several trips back and forth from the wreckage that day, not wanting to leave the alien alone but also worried that someone else will find the ship. He’s guessing the alien is going to want a new ship, so he takes as many parts as he can find that seem important and don’t seem likely to blow up in his face. This is a dangerous game, but in the end, Shiro makes it back at sunset with the last of what he thinks is an engine. His shed looks like a mad scientist’s lab, and he checks the padlock on it three times before going back inside. 

As if a padlock is gonna stop the US military. Well, one can hope.

The alien is still unresponsive. Shiro makes an anxious bowl of mac ‘n cheese and feeds the cat as she returns from her daily desert prowls and winds needily around his ankles. He’s pouring her kibble into her bowl when she hisses, fur puffing up and eyes narrowed to slits as she stares at the alien on the futon. Shiro sighs and shakes his head. “It’s been a  _ day, _ Calypso,” he tells her. She mews uncertainly, padding closer to the bed, and he points at her in warning. “Stay away from him, kitty. We don’t know what he can do, to you or me.”

She gives him a look as if to say,  _ Then why the hell is he here, huh? _

Shiro isn’t entirely certain of that, himself, but he has to keep tearing his gaze away from the alien’s soft, scarring, slumbering face during dinner. That night, after hours of troubled tossing and turning, he dreams of brilliant supernovae and sharp teeth. 

*

Keith awakes in a soft, warm cot. He blinks, uncomprehending, at the ceiling. It is made of something organic — wood, he thinks, but not any kind he has seen before. 

He feels like shit. That’s the next thought.

And the next, and most pressing thought, is that there is a tiny monster perched on his chest, staring at him with large green eyes. Keith goes very still and stares back at it. He doesn’t know what else to do. He’s in no shape to be fighting, and though the creature is small and unarmored — its body is covered in sleek black fur — it has sharp white teeth and curved claws Keith can feel digging in through the blanket over him. 

It could draw blood, at the very least. He gulps. The creature lowers its head, shifting its weight forward so he can see its swishing, furred tail, and pricks its small triangular ears. 

_ MROW,  _ it says. It is a loud and potentially threatening noise. Keith winces and squeezes his eyes shut as it opens its mouth, praying it won’t go for his already-stinging right cheek.

A door bangs open. “Calypso! Bad kitty, down, I told you not to bother...him…”

Keith’s eyes shoot open as soon as his translator buzzes to life where it’s implanted just behind his ear. The clawed creature leaps off of him in apparent alarm, and Keith isn’t able to sit up fully, but he turns his head on the overstuffed pillow to see the speaker standing at the other end of the modest room, gaping at Keith.

Keith, again, just stares back, but this time with more curiosity than fear. This creature, he has a name for. Human. There were few reports about what they looked like, and he only has what his mother told him as a truly reputable source, but seeing one in the flesh is...different. 

This human is male, probably, and big. But he looks young enough, also. Younger than Keith’s father had been, certainly, because his hair is all dark with no gray and his face looks smooth. He is not wearing a flight suit or uniform of any kind, but rather dark blue pants of an odd rough material and a simple white shirt with sleeves cut very short, exposing the musculature of his arms, and the honey-tan of his skin. 

No, wait –  _ arm,  _ Keith corrects. His right arm is not flesh, but a dark metal. A prosthesis, and an advanced one, possibly weaponized. Keith’s gaze flicks from the curling metal fingers to the pale pink scar slashed across the bridge of the human’s nose. A warrior? Soldier?  _ Hm. _

He is also, Keith is startled to realize, very attractive. Keith expected many things on Planet 3:X-9-Y; finding the first human he saw to be one of the most attractive individuals he has ever encountered was not one of them. 

The attractive human is, however, still staring at him with obvious panic in his weird grayish eyes, which have white scleras that Keith does not find nearly as unnerving as he ought to. He does find the human’s panic unnerving, though — painfully aware of his current vulnerability and of the less pleasant reality of the human’s size and evident strength, he resolves to try to calm the human down.

Before he can attempt this, however, the human tries to calm  _ him _ down.

“Hello,” the human says, slowly and carefully enunciated, angling his body as if to hide the prosthetic arm. “Not gonna hurt you. Do you understand me? At all?”

Keith blinks rapidly at him, taken aback. The human has a nice voice, also. He feels a little lied to. His mother never mentioned humans were so alluring. But maybe he was meant to assume this, considering his mother mated with the first one she found. 

The human’s eyes dart back and forth. “Um. Okay. Language barrier, that’s fine, we can work with that. Uh — I’m Shiro.” He points at his own broad chest, again with his left hand, apparently pretending the right one does not exist. “Shiro.”

Keith peers at him, trying very hard not to smile. He is beginning to doubt this human poses a threat at all. 

When he doesn’t reply, the human, Shiro, grows more flustered. “I — how are you? Your face — it was cut pretty bad.” He points at his cheekbone, where Keith can feel heavy bandages on his own face. “You were cut up everywhere, honestly, and I did what I could, but I think you broke some ribs and it’s incredible you survived at all, really, you’ve been out for almost three days…” He exhales. “Sorry. Too many words. Uh — do you have a name?” He points at himself again. “Shiro.” Then he points at Keith and makes a questioning face.

Keith clears his throat. “Keith,” he says. 

Confusion flickers across Shiro’s face.  _ “Keith?”  _ he repeats in disbelief.

Keith nods as much as he is able. “My name is Keith,” he says. “Thank you for saving me.”

Shiro slumps against the wall. “You speak English,” he says faintly.

Keith nods. Shiro turns red. Ah. Blushing. His mother told him about that, because she initially found it very concerning, but Keith just finds it sort of...cute.

“I am sorry,” he adds, coughing a little. “I wanted to judge if you were a friend or an enemy, first.”

Shiro’s eyes widen. “A friend,” he says hastily, “I don’t want to hurt you, I swear —”

“If you wanted to hurt me, you had many chances already,” Keith sighs, relaxing back into the bed. “I would be dead if you had not found me.” He pauses. “How is my ship?”

Shiro is silent. Keith swallows. “It’s pretty wrecked,” Shiro says quietly. “I’m sorry. I took some parts back that looked important, but most of it was just...destroyed.”

“I see,” Keith murmurs. “So I am stuck here.”

“I —” Shiro looks down. “If there’s anything I can do to help, I will. It’s summer, so it isn’t open yet, but I have friends who work at a college not far from here. When the school year starts I’ll have access to the aerospace lab and maybe we can figure out something there – I do know my way around planes – or, er, ships – pretty well, so at least there’s that?”

Keith gazes at him. “Why are you helping me?” It is a simple question, not loaded, not angry. Just wondering.

Shiro blushes again, and scratches the back of his neck in an odd gesture which seems to convey shyness. “Because you needed help,” he says.

It is this answer — and maybe Shiro’s handsome face and Keith’s relative lack of other options — which makes Keith decide to stay with the human named Shiro until he can find his way back home.

*

Keith quickly learns that Calypso, who is not a small monster, usually, but a “cat,” is more fond of cuddling than mauling. She has many oddly Galra habits, so many that Keith muses over the possibility that they are related species. When tells this to Shiro one night over bowls of the delicious soup the human often makes, called “miso,” Shiro chokes on a piece of tofu. When Keith demands to know the reason for his choking (Keith has learned that Shiro often chokes on words he would rather not say), he admits that Keith often reminds him of a cat.

This is a comparison Keith puzzles over at length. If Shiro thinks he is like a cat, is that demeaning? Does he see Keith like an animal, a domesticated house pet? But, Shiro likes cats a lot. Does this mean he likes Keith a lot? Keith can’t figure it out.

What he does know is that one night, when Shiro comes back after nearly a week away, at his real house in a real town with his real family, the human pauses beside the bed where Keith is curled up, pretending to be asleep though he had awoken as soon as he caught Shiro’s scent in the dusty desert air. He reaches down, and Keith feels his warm fingers brush through Keith’s hair, over the slack curve of his ear. His thumb touches the tip of it, and then draws away.

In the morning, Shiro is there making breakfast. He gives Keith a plate of quail’s eggs and toast, along with a mug of the delicious substance called “coffee.”

During such meals together, Shiro often tells him about Planet 3:X-9-Y, which is called “Earth.” He asks Keith many questions about himself, about space, about his home planet, and Keith tells him as little as possible. He is sure the human knows what he’s doing, but Shiro never presses him on anything.

In much the same way, when Keith works up the courage to ask about Shiro’s arm, the human’s answer is short and simple. “I was in a war,” he says. 

“What war?” Keith asks. “Here? On Earth?”

“Sort of.” Shiro’s lips twist wryly. “I was a pilot.”

“Did your ship go down?” Keith asks. “Like mine?”

Shiro shrugs. “Something like that,” he says, and clears his throat. “Sorry, I’d rather not...think about it.”

“Oh,” Keith says, and stares down into his bowl of soup – “tomato,” this time, with a delicious “sandwich” called “grilled cheese.” Keith dips a piece of the bread into the soup awkwardly. “I apologize for asking.”

“No, don’t,” Shiro sighs, stirring his own soup and shaking his head. “It’s okay.” He hesitates. “I’m glad you kept both arms,” he adds. “I’m a decent engineer, but I think this kind of tech is a little outside of my skill-set.” He flexes his metal fingers. The metal glimmers. Lately, Keith finds himself wondering if those fingers are cool to the touch – or would they be warm, like the rest of Shiro? Keith is glad that Galra do not blush when he thinks these things.

“I’m glad, too,” Keith tells him. “We can talk about something else, if you want.” He nods to the ceiling. “Tell me about this house?”

The little house in the middle of the desert, Shiro tells him, was his uncle’s. His uncle died a few years ago, and left Shiro the house, because Shiro spent many days here with him as a child. But most of the time, Shiro lives in the town fifty miles away, with his roommate Matthew, who was also a soldier. He takes Keith to this town, once. It is terrifying. 

Keith hunches down under his hood, frightened by the endless rows of “houses” and “stores” and the many, many humans walking past. He does learn then that Shiro is indeed exceptional among humans, and is relieved to know that they are not all so beautiful and perfect, but he does not want to go to town again. 

Shiro agrees it is best for him to stay in the desert house, especially because Keith is still recovering. It has been, in Earth time, about three months since his ship crashed, and his body still aches with the memory of brushing so near with death. He has the scars to prove it, including the slash across the right side of his face. 

He kept his eye, and is grateful for that, but Keith has caught Shiro looking at the scar with a twisted, pinched expression. Keith never mentions this to him, but the knowledge that Shiro will never see him the way Keith has seen him from the start is painful. 

Not only is Shiro human, he is a prime specimen of his kind. Keith, on the other hand, looks Galra, with the runty size of a rather average human, and is covered in the marks not only of the crash, but of past battles. Shiro’s scars are few and clean. Keith looks like a chew toy. In addition to all the smaller scars, when all is said and done, Keith has lost an eartip, a chunk out of his thigh, and has scars which still bear Shiro’s suture-marks on his scalp, his thigh, his back, and his shoulder. There is also, of course, the scar on his face, which is deeper and larger than Shiro’s, and is healing with little improvement.

The Galra see scars as badges of honor. Keith does not think humans see them like this at all. Shiro rarely speaks of either of their scars or of his arm, but when he does it is with sardonic, self-deprecating jokes. He is not proud of them, that much is clear. And if he is ashamed of his own injuries, how must he see Keith?

Keith dodges Shiro’s questions about the Galra as best he can. He does not want Shiro to know just how much of a failure he is. He survived the crash, but that does not matter when he will return empty-handed, if he returns at all. 

This was his chance to prove himself. His mother will be so disappointed. He tries to stop thinking of her. He tries to stop thinking of home. But it is like an open wound, one that worsens and festers as the weeks drag on, especially when Shiro is gone, and he has only the desert and Calypso as company.

*

Shiro parks his bike in front of Keith’s shack, as he has begun to think of it. Every time he returns, he notices other little touches the Galra has added — a potted cactus in the windowsill along with some polished stones and fossils, aloe pieces on the kitchen counters, snakeskins and bird feathers arranged in fascinating arrays on the table. 

This time, it’s a coyote skull, bleached from the sun. Keith has placed it tastefully on the porch, and it glowers at Shiro with empty sockets as he unlocks the door and steps inside.

The small house is dark, as he expected, but it is not wholly quiet. There is a soft sound coming from the single bedroom, and Shiro closes the door slowly, tiptoeing down the hall towards the cracked open doorway. He furrows his brow — the bedroom is dark, but Keith is still awake, and he’s. Shiro stops, stricken. 

Keith is crying.

His muffled sobs ring out in the hushed night, cradled by the crickets and rushing wind outside. Shiro stands in the shadow of the open door, at a loss. He should not be here, listening to this, listening to Keith weep openly, every breath hitching in a ragged edge. The Galra rarely shows much emotion, sometimes frustration or delight, but never this raw grief which tugs at Shiro’s heart just to hear. 

He should not be here, but he is, and now that he is...Shiro has to at least try to help. He knocks softly on the door. “Keith? Hey. It’s me. Are you okay?”

Keith’s sob turns strangled, and breaks off into shaky silence. But he doesn’t say no, so Shiro hesitates before pushing the door fully open and stepping inside.

Keith has undone all the bedsheets, and heaped them into a sort of circular pile in the middle of the mattress, where he sits hunched and trembling. His ears are pinned back and his knees are tucked to his chest, arms wrapped tight around his legs, hiding his tearstained face from Shiro through the damp curtain of his hair. “I’m sorry,” is the first thing Keith says.

Shiro sucks in a sharp breath. “Sorry? You —  _ why?  _ Keith, no. Don’t be sorry. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I’m not  _ okay,  _ Shiro,” Keith hisses through bared teeth, golden eyes glowing wicked-bright in the shadows. Shiro flinches back. Keith sees it, and slumps, ears and shoulders drooping again. “I don’t know if I’ll ever see my family again, or my home,” he says, barely a whisper. “I failed in my mission here, I nearly died, I destroyed my ship, and I’m...I’m alone.” He buries his face in the heels of his palms. “Please, just go, Shiro. You don’t have to keep coming back. I know you didn’t ask for this, for me, and you’ve already done more than enough. If you want the house back, I can leave, I can find a — a cave, or something else, and —”

Shiro sits down on the edge of the bed. Keith’s hands fall from his face. He stares at Shiro. Shiro reaches out, and slowly, watching Keith’s face as he does so, takes Keith’s hand. Clawed fingers curl against his palm, and he holds it a little tighter. 

“I’m not leaving,” Shiro whispers fiercely. “You’re not alone, Keith. I know I’m not Galra, I’m not your family, but I’m here, with you. And I don’t think you’re a failure. It wasn’t your fault that your ship crashed. I’m just glad —” 

Shiro’s breath catches and Keith makes a soft sound, shifting closer. His eyes shine, not with anger and sorrow, but with something like hope. “I’m just glad you’re alive,” Shiro admits. “When I think about that day I found you, and how I thought at first you must be dead…” He shakes his head. “There was a reason we met,” he says. “There was a reason you held on for long enough for me to find you. I believe that, Keith. The Universe isn’t done with you yet, and neither am I.”

“Shiro,” Keith breathes, and when Shiro embraces him, Keith doesn’t pull away. “Don’t go,” he says, lips warm on Shiro’s throat. “Please don’t leave me here.”

“I won’t,” Shiro says automatically, but as his other hand finds Keith’s soft hair and curls close over his pounding pulse, he knows he means it.

*

The next morning, for the first time since his arrival, Keith looks in Shiro’s shed. He expects to find nothing. Instead, in a single surviving microchip they dig out of the busted nav system together, they find a map – or at least, remnants of one. 

“Oh,” Keith whispers peering at the data points flickering across the laptop screen. “It – it worked. There’s pieces missing, but – it actually generated a map based on Earth’s quintessence readings.” He exhales shakily. “The mission might not be a failure after all…if we had the rest of the map.” He frowns at the stubbornly blinking screen.

Shiro, however, grins, a little manic. He plops down in the desk chair, and cracks his knuckles while Keith watches, nonplussed. “I knew acing four years of computer science courses would come in handy one of these days,” Shiro declares. “What coding language does this program use, do you know?”

Keith looks at him blankly. “I am a pilot,” he says, “and a Blade. Not a nerd.”

(This is another Earth word he has learned.)

“Not true,” Shiro says. “You watched  _ Star Wars _ and you liked it.”

“You  _ made  _ me watch  _ Star Wars, _ ” Keith sighs, though fondness bubbles up in his chest. 

“I didn’t make you thirst over Han Solo, though,” Shiro says, and starts typing while Keith splutters. 

(He does not know exactly what ‘thirst’ means, but he has a few guesses.)

*

Matt finds a new roommate, and Shiro moves into the little house in the desert.

It isn’t an instantaneous change, but as the weeks pass, Keith realizes Shiro has stopped leaving for much longer than it takes to get groceries. This creates a bit of a dilemma with sleeping arrangements, but after much back-and-forth, Shiro persuades Keith to take the bed, claiming he’s used to the harder futon after his years in the military. 

Keith is unsure how truthful this is, but he likes the soft nest he’s made in the bedroom, and each morning when he pads out into the kitchen to make coffee, Shiro is snoring happily away, with Calypso either curled up on his pillow or bothering Keith for breakfast.

They piece together the map bit by bit. After five months, it’s halfway done, and after Shiro gets a solid grip on whatever he’s doing, it only takes another month for him to finish it. In the meantime, Keith works on the growing shell of a new ship in Shiro’s shed and takes the map fragments to scout out the area it seems to correspond to. The map is, it turns out, a map of their desert. 

Keith’s new ship is not nearly as beautiful as his old one, but it is – or will be – functional. Shiro recovered the most vital piece from the wreckage, the power core, and there are only a few more parts Keith needs, all of which Shiro seems confident he will find on Earth. Each sunrise is more hopeful than the next – and yet, each sunrise marks one less day until he leaves Planet 3:X-9-Y, a day he never thought would come, but now races towards him with every piece welded in place, every splash of paint, every blinking dot added to the blank screen.

At the end of six months, they sit before the screen displaying the full map and Keith thinks Shiro was right. There was a reason they met, a reason he survived – the Universe isn’t done with either of them.

“Thank you,” Keith tells Shiro, their faces illuminated by silver. It’s all he can say. The lump in his throat leaves no room for other words.

“Thank  _ you,” _ Shiro replies, and squeezes his hand. “It’s been a long time since I really felt like I was doing something meaningful. I missed that feeling.”

Keith bites his lip. “You are meaningful,” he says, “to me.”

Shiro’s eyes widen. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then coughs and turns away. “So are you,” he murmurs. 

They are quiet. Keith is almost afraid to breathe.

Shiro breaks the silence first. “Tomorrow you can go out there and find whatever it is you’re looking for, hm? Then we can focus on getting your ship up and running, and then...then, you’re out of here.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Yes,” Keith says, but he cannot smile back.

He cannot sleep that night, either. He tosses and turns, but the bedroom is too quiet, the walls closing in on him, and after several hours of this he gives up and wanders outside, sitting for a while on the porch steps, staring up at the stars. He does not know where Daibazaal is, but trying to imagine it hurts his head as much as it fascinates him. A year from now, will he sit on the palace steps in Daibazaal and look up at this same sky, and think of Shiro? 

He will be made a senior Blade if he returns. He will be a success. He will be with his mother, with his family. But Shiro will be one hundred and seventeen light years away. And what will Shiro do? Will Shiro sit here, watching, wondering? Or will he forget Keith? Will he bring someone else to this little house in the desert, and watch the stars with them?

Keith does not cry, this time. He just thinks. He blames the way his eyes sting on the desert dust. Then he wanders into the shed. 

His new ship stands there, an inert silhouette. He runs his palm over her wings. The metal is warm to the touch. Everything is warm, here. When his ship was tumbling through the atmosphere, he thought Earth was nothing like home, but he was wrong. He misses Daibazaal, but he will miss Earth, too.

Most of all, he will miss Shiro.

There is a crackle from the cockpit. Keith blinks, then hurries to open it, and clamber inside. The space is small, cramped, and he fumbles with the dials, out of practice. But it’s his communications. A channel is open, and someone is trying to contact him. Keith flicks the switch and the cockpit floods with the sound of his mother’s voice. Keith gasps aloud in sheer relief and surprise. Her voice pauses, clears.

_ – Keith? Is someone there? I repeat, is – _

“Yes,” Keith says, stumbling over the Galran words after so many months of disuse, “yes, Krolia, it’s me. I’m here.”

_ Keith! _ Her relief is palpable.  _ We did not hear from you. You were presumed dead. What happened? _

“I crashed,” Keith says. “Badly.”

_ And you survived? How? _

“There was a human,” Keith says. “He saved my life.”

_ A human, _ Krolia repeats. 

“His name is Shiro.” Keith’s voice cracks.

_ Ah, _ Krolia says. _ I see. _ She pauses.  _ Did you repair your ship? _

Keith nods miserably, before adding, “Yes. It’s – almost flight-ready.”

_ And the map? Did it work as intended? _

“Shiro...helped me piece it together,” Keith says. “I’m looking for the coordinates tomorrow.”

_ Good. _ Krolia clears her throat.  _ Well, since you’re alive...I should tell you that your mission objective has changed. _

Keith stiffens. “What? What is it?”

He can hear the smile in her voice.  _ Your mission is to stay on Earth, _ she says, _ and protect our assets there for the foreseeable future. More agents will come, in time, but for now… _

“I can stay,” Keith whispers.

_ Yes, _ she says.  _ With your Shiro. _

Keith slumps back in the pilot seat. “I can stay,” he repeats, and again, softer, “I can stay.”

_ Stay, _ Krolia says. _ And keep in touch, my son. _

“I will,” Keith promises, dazed. She closes the channel.

Keith climbs out of the cockpit. He touches the ship. “Not yet,” he tells it, and goes back inside. 

He doesn’t return to his bedroom. He pauses beside Shiro’s futon, and looks down at his sleeping face, scarred and serene. Keith is careful when he slips under the sheets beside him, and reaches out to touch Shiro’s right hand where it sits on the coffee table. The metal is cool, but Shiro is warm. When Keith snuggles in until their chests touch, Shiro makes a sleepy sound and his arm falls over Keith’s hip, and Keith has never felt safer.

“I’m staying,” Keith whispers into the shadow of Shiro’s jaw, where neck meets body. “Right here.”

It’s easy to fall asleep, after that.

*

Shiro awakes with a warm body curled alongside his own. The pale light of predawn streams in through the gap in the curtains, and falls across Keith’s face where it’s tucked just under Shiro’s shoulder, nestled close to his heart. Keith’s claws snag on his shirt when he shifts. Maybe Shiro should be panicking, but he isn’t. He’s just happy. 

He nudges Keith gently, but it’s only when he cups Keith’s face in his hand that the Galra’s golden eyes blink open, and lift hazily to Shiro’s face. “Good morning,” Shiro says, rubbing his thumb over Keith’s cheekbone, over the scar there. “Did you get lost last night?”

When Keith smiles, his teeth don’t look so sharp. He shakes his head. “No,” he mumbles. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”

Shiro’s heart beats faster. “Yeah?” There are a million questions on the tip of his tongue, but they can wait. 

Kissing Keith right now, though, is top priority. So he does.

Keith kisses back slow and lazy. His claws dance down Shiro’s back, and Shiro’s arm curls tighter around his waist. Keith runs hot, and his breath is hotter on Shiro’s mouth, feathering across his cheek as they part. 

“Yeah,” Keith echoes, and traces the curve of Shiro’s lips with the pad of his thumb. “I’m with you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Shiro kisses him again, and the rising sun paints the walls of their little house in incandescent light, as if the room is filled with cosmic fire.


End file.
